Bryce and Hunt keep moving through the shattered core chamber as Rigelus hammers them with power. Bryce repeatedly teleports them ahead of each strike while Hunt’s lightning blasts a narrowing tunnel through the crystal toward the firstlight core, but the prolonged effort drains them both.

Rigelus finally catches them with a corrosive wall of force and drives them into the stairwell. Bryce’s teleportation sputters from exhaustion, and Rigelus taunts that Bryce spent too much strength fighting Polaris. With no good options, Bryce forces one more teleport with Hunt, landing them on a level above the core but leaving Bryce near collapse.

Needing a final push, Bryce asks Hunt for a boost. Hunt kisses Bryce and feeds her a thin stream of lightning power—just enough to keep her moving—when Ithan Holstrom suddenly races up with the Godslayer Rifle and thrusts it into Bryce’s hands.

Ithan insists the dead sent him, and that Connor left a single bullet filled with Crescent City’s secondlight for Bryce, urging her to make it count. Bryce realizes the round is not meant to kill an Asteri directly but to act as a secondlight bomb to rupture the crystal around the core and unleash the firstlight.

Because Bryce lacks the strength to teleport both of them, Bryce presses the Mask into Hunt’s hand, orders Hunt to get out of the palace, and teleports alone with the rifle. In the core room, Bryce finds Rigelus backed by the three other remaining Asteri, blocking the shot; when Bryce hesitates, Rigelus warns that destroying the firstlight core will destroy Midgard itself.